We believe in Australia. We believe there stretches before her a great future, that she is destined to become a mighty nation. We have come through d… - Billy Hughes

What was the economic policy of Britain going to be? It was not merely a question of a tariff; the great question, Were we going to take such steps as would ensure prosperity in Britain and throughout the Empire, or weakly by a policy of inaction allow the nation to drift on to the rocks? It was impossible for the workers of this or any other country in improve their working conditions unless sound economic conditions existed. And this could only be done by securing the home market and controlling the sources from which the raw materials came. Labour must, for its own protection, take up the question of after-the-war problems, of trade organisation, of securing raw materials. The Government should declare its policy, and the nation should see that no peace was made with the enemy by which these steps, so necessary for our salvation, were rendered impossible.

[A]mongst the chief causes of this war [is] the desire of Germany to wrest from Britain her industrial and commercial supremacy. ... [I]f I have interpreted the temper of the people of the Empire aright, they have determined that the end of this war will see, not only the downfall of Prussian military power, but of that insidious and intolerable influence which had in very many cases reached a point when Germany actually dominated the trade, not only of this Empire, but of that of our Allies.

Germany...deliberately appealed to the arbitrament of the sword. Now, when she is beginning to learn that the world is not a sheep to be butchered, but that it has both the means and the will to defend itself, she talks about a “League of Nations”. Had she achieved world power, would our fate have differed from that of Russia or Rumania? Would she then have talked about a League of Nations?